


good life

by jayhood



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, From a kid's POV, Gen, Kid Fic, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Secret Identity, Suburbia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayhood/pseuds/jayhood
Summary: They were living a good life. Damian’s parents said so.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	good life

**Author's Note:**

> This is a canon-divergent AU inspired by: Son of the Demon, Death and the Maidens, Red Hood: Lost Days, and Final Crisis and its aftermath.

They were living a good life. Damian’s parents said so.

Sometimes they said through their teeth, chest slowly rising and falling again, while the other rubbed their back, helping to calm down. Sometimes they returned like this from PTA meetings. Or date night. People in Norfolk could be very obnoxious, making comments about things that weren’t their business, but that’s the thing with towns where the total population will never rise above 12 thousand. Everyone thinks your business is their business.

They said it also after watching the news until the news had been banned in the house.

“Face it, we’re just using it to hurt ourselves,” Father said, grimly, flickering the TV off.

Mother sighed, rubbing her forehead.

“We can’t just close off the whole world. It’s not right.”

“We have a good life, here.” Father hugged her, petting her hair until she relaxed enough to burrow her face into his shoulder.

“I hate it here,” she said quietly, but Damian still heard. “If not for Damian...”

That made Father look up, find him with his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, “come here, Damian.”

He opened his arms enough to make room for him. Damian came closer, and Father pulled him into the hug. Mother’s hand immediately squeezed him just short of painful.

“If you hate it here so much,” Damian mumbled. “Let’s move. I hate it here, too.”

“No, you don’t,” Mother sighed, meeting his eyes. “We have a good life here. You have friends, you have your drawing lessons, we’re getting you a puppy for your birthday.”

Damian perked up, and his Father groaned.

“So much for the surprise.”

Then he got serious, and touched Damian lightly on the chin, turning his head to him.

“Do you seriously hate it here? Because if so, we can move. We will. Coastal France, how about that? Italy, maybe.”

“You hate the heat,” Mother murmured.

“Scandinavia, then.”

Damian gave himself a minute to think it over. Sometimes, people in school could be assholes, but he also had friends there. And there was not much to do in town if you weren’t into video games or hanging around the mall...

“Can we move to New York?”

Father tensed.

“Or Metropolis,” Damian said helplessly, feeling that the answer was going to be no, but still needing to ask. “Somewhere that isn’t  _ boring _ .”

“Ah,” Mother said, touching Damian on the shoulder briefly. “Your father doesn’t do great in big cities.”

“Why?”

Damian addressed it to his father. He looked miserable. Couldn’t meet Damian’s eyes. They were teaching him all kinds of things, his parents, and one of those things was reading body language and micro-expressions. Father felt ashamed... guilty.

“Big cities are rough,” Mother said gently. Like Damian was a baby. “People there aren’t always good.”

“I know that!” Damian extricated himself from the ring of their hands. “You know what? People here aren’t always good either! Terrence Macklemore’s father beats him and his older brother. Mister Lawrence always bullies girls and make some of them stay after phys ed.”

“Yeah?” father said.

Something in his face changed, there and gone again before Damian could figure it out. Damian shivered. His mother said in a low voice:

“Don’t.”

“I am not doing anything.”

Father made a beeline to the fridge, got his beer out, stayed in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said, leaning the bottle against his head. “We’re here because of me. You would do great in Metropolis. Hell, you would do great in Washington. It’s me who is the problem.”

“And what do you suggest?” Mother said, her tone was sheer ice. “I take Damian, and we leave you here?”

Father finally opened the bottle and took a big sip in lieu of answering.

Damian didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

“Forget it,” he snapped and run to his room.

That was that. Life stayed as it were, except their physical ed teacher had resigned. Rumors had it, he took up a completely different carrier, became a trainer in a gym next town over. And Mr. Macklemore suffered an incident, so Terry and his brother had to move in with their aunt in California. Damian, hearing about it for the first time, was jealous for all of a second. Before he realized that if it was him, and he would never see his parents again... It wasn’t worth it.

Mother remained cross with his father for a while after that fight. Damian seriously became afraid that they were going to divorce, that it would be as Mother said: they would leave, and leave Father behind.

Father, it seemed, caught his mood, because he tried to spend even more time with Damian, taking him on hikes, organizing a weekend fishing trip though, as he admitted, he never held a fishing rod in his hands before. Maybe, Damian thought, he was afraid of the same thing. Or couldn’t stand being in the same house as Mother. She always seemed on a brink of... something, lately. Tightly-coiled.

When they returned, though, she took them to a place downtown. It was a large studio with a boxing ring at the center.

“I’m going to open self-defense courses,” she said. “Damian could even help me out with newcomers and children. He’s proficient enough.”

Father looked dubious.

“That doesn’t look like a setup for self-defense practice.”

“Offense,” she said. “Sometimes is the best defense.”

Father immediately started to look pissed.

“That’s not what we’re trying to teach Damian.”

“Do you wish to talk about what we are teaching to Damian? Or are you of “do as I said, not as I do” mindset, after all?”

“I couldn’t just...”

“But I, somehow, should.”

Father deflated.

“I fu... I messed up. I know.”

“You had not messed up. You had broken a promise.”

“You would do the same thing.”

“I  _ wanted  _ to do the same thing. I didn’t. There are better ways, as  _ you  _ told me.”

“What are you talking about?” Damian demanded.

Mother smiled tightly at him. Father sighed and put his hands on Damian’s shoulder.

“Nothing. It’s just a change, and I don’t do well with changes. That’s why I am grumpy, and your mother is calling me out on being a huge hypocrite.”

“That explains nothing!” Damian exploded.

He was in the good mood after their trip. Damian had a great time laughing at his father’s miserable attempts to strike the fish when it bit - one time he even lost his equilibrium and fell down into the lake. Even if he was pretty sure that his father hammed it up on Damian’s expense. But now the last lingering remains of his mood disappeared.

“What kind of explanation is that?” Damian thrust his finger into his father’s chest. “You don’t do well with changes? You don’t do well with crowds? What  _ do _ you do well with?”

“Bikes,” his father said wryly. “And trucks, mostly. And whatever other vehicles people bring into my shop.”

Damian seethed. Father was never going to tell him, was he? He thought he was a baby, still. And he was awful when Damian was a baby. Damian didn’t remember it himself anymore, but sometimes Mother would share stories. She found it funny, how Father was always following Damian on a playground, afraid that he will fall down from the jungle gym or a swing, or that someone hurts him.

Mother was protective of him, too, but that made her wake Damian up with sunrise for an hour-long meditation and katas. Father never joined. He never said anything, but Damian had a feeling that he didn’t like Mother teaching Damian how to fight.

Father’s protectiveness made him interrogate all his friends’ parents before allowing Damian to have a sleepover at their place, thinly veiled threats to his teachers that never called on Damian in class or called too often, and were always butchering his name, and sometimes looked the other way when Howie Tanner shoot pieces of eraser or chewed paper at him. It made him always close up his shop to take Damian to his baseball practice and stay for the whole time when other fathers didn’t even come to every  _ game _ . Until Damian had to drop out because of embarrassment (and also, comments that other children sometimes made about his parents, his mother in particular; Damian shut them up with his fists more than once, but it always made Father sad and worried).

_ Both  _ of them, of course, made sure he knew where they keep cash, documents, and another set of documents, in different names, hidden beneath floorboards. And they made him run drills, sometimes, to make sure he could get it and get out of the house in under two minutes. But, in the end, his mother trusted Damian to learn and keep himself safe. His father always treated him as something fragile. Like a little bird that fell out of its nest.

It drove Damian mad. But the more he shouted at his father, the calmer he appeared to be. He never raised his voice at Damian or snapped at him. He would, however, leave the house entirely, sometimes. Go for a run. It’s only lately that he started to take Damian along, promising to talk more during the run. But somehow, they never did. His father could go at really cruel speed, making Damian’s lungs burn with effort. Though when he noticed Damian struggling to keep up, he always would slow down to a manageable pace.

After a run like that, Damian usually didn’t feel the need to scream at his father anymore. It felt like Father was cheating, but when Damian started to refuse and stayed home, he just wallowed in his anger and misery. He would start the argument as soon as Father came back, but Father was always calm and tired. It was like shouting at the wall. It’s not that he didn’t feel heard. It’s that sometimes Damian felt like the only reason why Father would be so calm every goddamn time when Damian was fighting with him, it was because he didn’t care.

His fights with Mother, albeit Damian didn’t understand a lot of things they left unsaid, were more emotional. Sometimes even loud.

The worst one was after they returned from holiday. It was a week before Damian’s birthday, and they spent it in Hawaii. Only, a day after they arrived, Mother left a note saying that she met some old friends and wanted to catch up. And disappeared for three days. Father with grim determination booked a lot of activities, like surfing lessons for Damian, a helicopter ride, swimming with dolphins, though the latter has been canceled due to some incident at the aquarium... They rented a car and went camping far off the beach or other people. As vacations went, it was their worst yet. Father spent more time looking at his satellite phone than talking to Damian.

When his mother found them in the jungle, Father looked both relieved and mad. But he didn’t say anything. Neither did Damian. He promptly decided not to talk to any of his parents, and kept the promise, even after they returned, and the long-promised puppy (a pit bull, with a wet nose and shiny black coat) or even the horse riding lessons Mother signed him up for didn’t make it up for him.

Was his mother cheating? It was unthinkable. Damian knew she loved Father, and he loved her. They didn’t say it to each other much, at least never when Damian could see it. They barely touched each other in public and rarely at home, never casually. But they looked at each other like the other was the only one who understands them, like it was them against the world. Like it was painful to see the other hurting, and joyful to see them laugh. Like sometimes they couldn’t handle the softness the other made them feel.

But what else was there? What would his mother do, for three days, alone on the unfamiliar island? What old friends would be worth ditching her husband and son, without even a good explanation?

Father knew what, Damian thought. He knew it right away but unwilling to bring up the issue until after they arrived back behind the safe walls of their home. Damian didn’t hear all of it, the accusations audible in his father’s voice but not their content. He had to crawl up the roof until he was above his parents’ bedroom and heard his father saying:

“Well, maybe it would be better if you fucked off to wherever you want to go, where you can make a difference. But I am staying here. And so does Damian.”

“You could come with us, you know. If you weren’t such a coward.”

“Yeah, I’m a coward, and I’m weak, forgive me if I don’t want to flush the best thing I ever had in my life down the toilet just so I could return to the life I left for a reason. We left for a reason.”

“Yes, for Damian. I wonder if it wasn’t a mistake. We didn’t want him to grow up like we did, to know things we did at his age. But what good it will do to keep him sheltered? He’s growing up. He’s going to leave home eventually. Leave this damned town. And he has no idea about how the world is. About anything.”

“Would it be better if we stayed where we were? Would you allow his grandfather to break him like he broke you and your siblings? Or, I know. We could move to Gotham! There’s nothing more real than that. And if we got killed, which, at the rate I was going, wouldn’t surprise me... Well, it’s nothing I didn’t experience myself, and I turned out just fine, right?”

“You did. You may hate yourself for what you had done. But you only were doing what you had to.”

“I was waiting to die, Talia. I just wanted to kill other people more than I wanted to kill myself.”

Damian shivered. He wasn’t being literal, was he?

“You had issues with regulating your emotions. But you weren’t addicted, you don’t have to give cities a wide breath like alcoholic staying away from a bar.”

“Yeah? That’s not what you said after Macklemore.”

What did he do with it? With anything?

“And now I see that you were right. We can’t just close ourself from the world, when injustice is happening right before our noses.”

“Oh, don’t use it to get out of what you did on Oahu. You left me and Damian in the lurch. He’s still upset about that.”

“I thought you are an adult who doesn’t need his mommy to hold his hand anymore. You were planning to take his surfing, what happened with that?”

“You! You happened! I needed an alibi for you. We couldn’t have been seen without you there.”

Damian’s hands, which he used to keep a hold on the roof tiles, were sweating now. What did his mother  _ do _ ?

“It would have been fine. Nobody would even think to question a mother on a vacation.”

“I don’t know if you truly believe that, or you just saying it to calm me down. Just. Tell me. Did you plan it? When we were deciding where to go, did you plan all of it?”

“I didn’t even know what was going on there.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“And where does it leave us?”

Enough. Damian couldn’t listen anymore. If they decided to divorce after all, he would prefer to hear about it later rather than sooner.

He started to crawl back but his hands were moist with sweat, now, and he slid down, a scream escaping his throat before he bit his tongue. It was too late, though, because the next second his father was there in the open window, swearing a storm.

Strong hands caught him and brought him inside.

It was the first time his father shouted at Damian. Mother shouted right back at him. Damian, feeling small and tired and still as though the ground was ready to jump up at him at any moment, just kept his hands over his ears.

And then the doorbell rung.

“Exquisite,” Mother hissed. “Your shouting brought neighbors’ attention. Damian, stay here with your father, I am going to get rid of them and then...”

“No,” Damian said, lurching to his feet.

He ran down the stairs, quickly slipping his shoes on and zipping his jacket up. He wanted to be out of this house, run away like his father usually did, until his head was clear, and at least something in his life made sense. He yanked the door open without even looking through the peephole, fully intending to push past the noisy Mrs. Simmons, but had stopped short.

“Hi, Damian,” the man on the porch said, smiling.

He looked like his father, a little. Same hair coloring, eyes blue, though more clear, vibrant color than father’s. White, though a different shade than Father. A couple of inches lower, but still pretty tall. More lean than built. He was, without a doubt, beautiful.

He crouched, so his eyes were on the same level as Damian’s, and Damian scowled immediately.

“My name is Dick. I am your brother.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey fellas, is it gay to fake your deaths and escape together, assume fake identities together, and raise a child in suburbs together?  
> I would say so.
> 
> But what do you think?  
> Comments are really appreciated.
> 
> Or, you can drop by [Damian Wayne's Discord Server](https://discord.gg/Fg7VWmw), would be glad to see you there if you like Damian!


End file.
